


l'amour toujours est chantant

by katana_fleet



Series: we chase the melodies that seem to find us [3]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, gotta love friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26663914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katana_fleet/pseuds/katana_fleet
Summary: Meg recognized him because she’d Facebook-stalked him more than once (many times for Christine because Christine refused to get a Facebook and wanted to keep up with childhood friends anyway, and once for Erik when he decided he wanted to remember the faces of everyone Christine had ever known. No one had ever said that Erik wasn’t dramatic).She thought about that last one for a second. Almost everyone had at some point said that Erik was creepy, and they were right.But Raoul de Chagny of the Most Pretentious Name Ever had just stepped into Meg’s bar, where two of her best friends (Christine and Erik) were the most common head-liners. The fact that it was one of their nights to perform couldn’t have been too much of a coincidence.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Series: we chase the melodies that seem to find us [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1454674
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	l'amour toujours est chantant

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'storybook' from the scarlet pimpernel musical (english: love is always singing). all credit to ALW, and also to ramin karimloo, sierra boggess, and hadley fraser because all i did this summer was watch anything i could find with the three of them. it was a very musical summer. 
> 
> this is one of those fics where i got it in my head and it wouldn't leave, so here you go! i have no other explanation.

Meg recognized the handsome stranger who stepped into the bar just as Christine started singing. She’d never met him before, but the sight of him still sent her heart rate into a frenzy.

She sighed at her own dramatics. Her heart rate didn’t go up because he was hot or anything. She recognized him because she’d Facebook-stalked him more than once (many times for Christine because Christine refused to get a Facebook and wanted to keep up with childhood friends anyway, and once for Erik when he decided he wanted to remember the faces of everyone Christine had ever known. No one had ever said that Erik _wasn’t_ dramatic).

She thought about that last one for a second. Almost everyone had at some point said that Erik was creepy, and they were right.

But Raoul de Chagny of the Most Pretentious Name Ever had just stepped into Meg’s bar, where two of her best friends (Christine and Erik) were the most common head-liners. The fact that it was a Wednesday couldn’t have been too much of a coincidence.

She’d decided to buy a bar and scrub the beer out of it and make it classy halfway through college, and Christine was her freshman year roommate slash best music major to ever graduate from their university, and Erik was the vaguely weird lurking guy slash second-best music major to ever graduate from their university.

The entire department had suffered since the two of them graduated, it must be said. The instructors were depressed (but also slightly lighter for the lack of Erik’s growling in dark corners) and Meg knew that they knew they would likely never get two such geniuses again. Meg was good at what she’d studied, but the business professors didn’t have such low hopes about the futures of their students.

With the three of them teaming up after graduation once Meg got the bar cleaned and legally owned (Erik with piano/very occasional vocals and Christine with vocals/very occasional violin and Meg with business/alcohol/conversation) Wednesday and Thursday nights at Opera Populaire were _slammed_. She asked them to perform on Fridays as well at least once a month, but they supposedly had lives outside of music. Meg doubted this.

Raoul wandered over to the bar as Erik started a flashy little warm-up for the next song. “What can I get you?” Meg asked, hoping that he wasn’t the type to stalk childhood friends on Facebook and find their college roommates.

He muttered something completely unintelligible (Christine had just started something in Italian, and it made everyone distracted) so Meg mixed a rum and coke and pushed it in his direction with a straw and he took it and drank most of it. She nodded, having expected nothing different. “Is that Christine Daaé?” he finally asked, peeling his eyes away from the artiste.

“Yes indeed, it is.” Meg decided to put herself out of her misery (which wasn’t much, she wasn’t given to feeling awkward much). “You’re Raoul, right? Christine’s childhood friend, yeah?”

He nodded, only a touch of unease appearing on his very trusting face. “You are?”

“Meg Giry. Christine and I went to college together. And Erik, the pianist, he was there too. I’ve Facebook-stalked you for Christine a few times.”

“I noticed a few years ago that she doesn’t have any social media. Just found her on accident, I saw a sign with her name on it and followed it here.”

Raoul had a creepy streak too! What was it with everyone Meg knew—or was it everyone that Christine knew—being slightly weird? She’d had such high hopes for Raoul: his face was just _trustworthy_. “She wants to keep as private as physically possible, which isn’t necessarily good for employment. But she’s so good that word of mouth is basically good enough to get her a job.”

“She’s incredible.” As if timed purposefully, Christine hit the last insanely high note of the song, with Erik letting go of the keys sooner as if to emphasize how long the woman could hold a note. Meg was deafened by applause that ranged from polite to obsessive, but she saw Christine glancing over to Erik, both of them nodding (it had sounded good), and making simultaneous marks on the sheet music.

They were quickly mobbed by weeping fans, but Erik in his black (cape-thing?) broke a path through for Christine to get to the bar.

Meg had the lemon-water and red wine waiting. “Here you go, milady and sir,” she chirped and handed them over.

“Thank you, dearest.” Christine drank the water in two long draughts (Erik sipped his wine like a gentleman), then she turned to Raoul. “Oh my goodness, it’s you!”

“Little Lotte, you were incredible!” Raoul said, reaching for her hands once Meg took the glass back. “I could hardly believe it was you.”

Christine giggled quietly and the two of them moved over to a table to talk, Christine brushing her hand over Erik’s arm before drifting off. Erik’s eyes followed her for a second before turning back to Meg.

“Was that the ’40?” he asked.

“You’re getting better! It was the ’38.” He shrugged. Meg and Erik had decided to train each other on wine (the one preference they had in common. Except piano, that was Meg’s favorite instrument too) and Erik was getting weirdly good at tasting the difference in years. “You’re not going to do something creepy to Raoul, right?”

Erik had the nerve to look slightly offended. “Meg Giry, you suspect me of being creepy?”

“Erik, I say this as your friend. Your second-best friend in the world, actually. Everything about you is kinda creepy.” He let out almost a growl. “Case in point, the growl. _Why_ do you think that’s necessary?”

“Fine. No, I’m not going to do anything to the boy.” A fan appeared to get Erik’s autograph, which he gave, looking supremely uncomfortable and gesturing toward Christine when the fan (bravely) asked for her. He turned back to Meg the moment the fan tapped on Christine’s arm and didn’t startle her too badly. “Do you want another Italian piece or something more American for the next one? We’ve decided on the last song already.”

Meg glanced around the bar. It was a fairly classy crowd that was sober enough to realize what language the soprano was utilizing. They’d appreciate another taste of Europe. “I guess the Italian. It’s late enough that it won’t make any real difference.” Erik nodded and finished his wine.

It was dark enough that she almost didn’t see Erik move to Christine’s side and gently take her hand to return to the stage. Once they were settled, Raoul returned to the bar.

“I ordered a whiskey earlier, and I think you gave me a rum and coke,” he said conversationally, swinging onto a comfy barstool (she’d gone all out to get comfy ones).

“I did,” Meg confessed, “since you were making no sense and I knew you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference for the first few sips. Christine has that effect on new people.”

“I’m not new though, not really. We’d met before tonight.”

“You haven’t heard her sing since she was a child, right? You’re definitely new.” She handed him a whiskey and he nodded his thanks.

Erik launched into a piano solo. Raoul whistled. “He’s really good.”

Understatement of the century. “He’s literally the best. And he has just enough ego to recognize it, bless him.”

“How does he play so well with the…” he gestured around the right side of his face, imitating the mask that clearly impaired his field of vision just a little.

Meg winced. If he asked Erik what had happened to his face like that, he’d be roasted. With the rage in Erik’s eyes. Sometimes she really wondered what Christine saw in him aside from incredible talent and the uncanny ability to listen and always be there and—right. If you got past the occasional rage and stalking, he was literally perfect. “Practice.”

Raoul nodded, taking that as explanation. Meg assumed that he would be fine by himself and wandered down to refill the glasses of a few regulars.

She vaguely registered that Christine ended the piece with another insanely high note. The woman would burn out her vocal cords at this rate. Not likely. Never mind. Meg flirted with someone she didn’t recognize for a minute until she heard the beginning notes of the last song.

Oh, shit. It was the song Erik wrote for Christine in college. One of them. This was the beautifully romantic one that always ended with someone in the bar crying and Meg herself with vaguely misty eyes and Christine staring at Erik like—well, like _that_. It was a duet, and it was the song that made the magazines that mentioned Opera Populaire absolutely gush about Christine’s soprano and Erik’s baritone and their perfection apart and together.

Ugh. She would never understand why they occasionally made this their closing song, except for the tease of _aren’t we great come back next week_. (It did work.) Meg sniffled and glanced over at Raoul. He was also affected, as one would expect. She wandered back toward him, straightening the bottles as she went because she was closing in (she checked her watch) twenty-four minutes.

Raoul wiped away a tear as they finished the song and the bar exploded in applause. “I never expected—” he said lowly through the screaming appreciation.

Meg nodded. Christine was good. Erik was good. It was a pity that he was determined that no one ever know for sure a) that he was the writer of most of their songs and b) the songs were all for her.

Meg herself was also good for having hired her old friends, because her tip jar had never been fuller. She made a mental note to have them sing more Italian and to sing that tear-jerker as much as they could handle.

Twenty-six minutes later, the four of them (Erik and Christine, Raoul and Meg) were wandering down the street toward a diner. Christine had found Raoul and begged him to come along for their post-Wednesday tradition—the greasiest non-chain diner within five miles of Opera Populaire. Meg found it delicious, Christine found it invigorating, and Erik didn’t eat much on a normal day so he didn’t get a say.

Raoul tried to take Christine’s arm as they meandered down the street, but Christine didn’t notice, either because she was too busy chattering about the night or because her other arm was in Erik’s. Meg started to feel vaguely sorry for Raoul and almost worried about Erik’s reaction when he realized that Raoul really couldn’t see.

They plopped down in their normal booth, their normal waitress glancing between Raoul and Meg with interest, and ordered their normal grease (Meg four pancakes, Christine the grandma’s special, Erik a bowl of fruit and a side of bacon, and Raoul sausage and biscuits. Fine, Raoul’s wasn’t normal, but judging by the speed of his order it could have been).

Christine asked about Raoul’s life since they were children, and they all found out that Raoul was the heir to no small fortune (he didn’t really brag about this, to his credit. Christine asked how life had been since his beloved grandfather died, then Erik did a random Sherlock deduction and well—Raoul was rich), had graduated with an accounting degree, and was _devastatingly_ single. Meg added the italics courtesy of Raoul’s lonely eyes, not actual words.

Raoul in turn found out about their college experience and how Meg had been the first to give Christine alcohol outside of communion (spiked coffee for the win), Erik had earned the moniker Phantom for sitting at the organ and playing ominous music most nights, and Christine was the worst goody-two-shoes to ever exist.

Meg didn’t miss Erik’s disgustingly proud look when Christine tried to prove herself a rebel and confessed her propensity for sleeping in the library senior year. He’d been the same way in college though, turning up with a babbling Christine cradled in his arms because she was too tired to walk but her brain was still whirling.

Raoul finally asked about Erik’s scar, making it the most “I don’t mean to pry, but” question she’d ever heard that didn’t involve those exact six words. Erik had finally gotten to the point a year or so back that he was comfortable enough with the diner to take the mask off inside, and they’d been just as nonchalant as Meg and Christine had known they’d be.

To her infinite surprise, Erik answered, putting an incredibly casual spin on the whole thing. “My father tried to burn the house down when I was four and my mother barely got us out on time. The plastic surgery was good, all things considered.”

Raoul just blinked for a moment. “I’m so sorry, man.”

Erik shrugged elegantly. “I don’t remember it, and my father was jailed for the little bit of life that remained to him. My mother ignored me fairly well, and I remained so until a music teacher found out I could play reasonably well. Then she worked to get me into a decent school, where I met these ladies.”

“And we decided that your personality was far more of a deterrent than the scar, and both were easy enough to get used to,” Christine said in one of her _very_ (very) rare burns. Meg whistled and reached over the table to clap a wide-eyed Erik on the shoulder. “Learned to love both, though,” Christine added, brushing her hand across Erik’s cheek and resting it on the back of his neck. The fire thus doused with more typical Christine sweetness, Erik grinned down at her.

They ate in silence for a minute before the owner came over to check on them. Christine made small talk with him, asking about his children and wife. It was all very domestic for a bit.

Meg was pouring blueberry syrup on her pancakes when Raoul finally asked the fateful question she’d been half-expecting since the man first walked into the bar. Although the question of whether the syrup was actually still good (if syrup could go bad, she was pretty sure this had) was slightly more of an important question and definitely more relevant to her future life, the “so, are you seeing anyone?” pointed at the group and vaguely (or specifically) pointed at Christine was pretty important.

Christine choked on her water and Erik lightly patted her back. Meg glanced over at them, eyebrows raised as she tried the doused pancake, and, sure enough, Raoul was the least observant rich person ever.

They didn’t wear their rings while they were performing, something about distracting the audience from the music or whatever. But they were wearing them now (the saps) and they were undeniably matching (a mottled white gold, Christine’s delicate with a diamond in the middle and Erik’s wider and diamond-less, but aside from that they were basically identical).

Christine was half-leaning against Erik when she finally managed to calm herself again. “Raoul, Erik and I are married. Have been for four years.”

Oh, poor Raoul. He looked like he’d been hit in by a truck. “What?” Not just hit by a truck—the truck had gone specifically for his head.

“We have a three-year-old,” Erik volunteered helpfully, face alight with amusement.

Meg wanted to hug Erik for that glitter of _this is funny_ in his eyes. It was so much character development compared to when Gilles flirted with Christine for a month of junior year and Erik threatened to make him disappear. Thankfully, that hadn’t happened, and Christine had required two months of serious consideration before she actually agreed to go out with him after all that nonsense. Anyway.

“Congratulations, then,” Raoul said, resolutely taking a bite of biscuit. His shoulders had drooped slightly, but Meg could see the determination to still enjoy a night out with an old childhood friend, and she admired him for it.

But speaking of Gustave—she grabbed her phone. “My mom sent a picture about an hour ago, I guess your phones are dead? But she wanted to show you how freakin’ cute your kid is. My mom sometimes watches Gus when they’re both working,” she said as an aside to Raoul.

Christine grabbed Meg’s phone and Erik fished around for his. “Aww, honey, look at him.”

Erik glanced at the picture, mouth twisting into a half smile. “Sweetheart, he’s covered in paint.”

“Maybe he’ll be a painter someday,” Christine cooed.

Raoul reached for the phone. “He’s the cutest thing,” he said appropriately (Meg could hear the increasing cheer in his voice just from seeing the baby), “but are you sure that’s paint?”

“What else would it be?” Christine asked innocently. Erik raised an eyebrow at his wife, finally producing his phone and turning it on.

“Blood,” Meg and Raoul said in unison. Meg took her phone back, nodding at Raoul’s perception and willingness to tell a mother that her child looked like he was covered in blood.

“You guys have no appreciation for art,” Christine said, shaking her head. “I’m sure Gustave knew exactly what he was doing when he picked scarlet.”

“Christine, my angel, our son is covered in red paint. He looks like he’s gotten through a slaughter. No doubt Meg’s mother is having a wonderful time cleaning it off the walls. Here, this is what the lad looks like when he’s not covered in the blood of his enemies.”

Meg leaned into Raoul’s shoulder to see the picture of the baby, who was as adorable as one would expect with parents like his. He still had curls in that picture, curls he was regrettably growing out of. She could almost hear the argument across the table (it was composed of glares and raised eyebrows, and they’d made silent communication into an art form) so it was best to continue admiring the kid.

“Gustave’s for your dad, yeah?” Raoul asked, composure turning into something Meg was pretty sure could be called _normal Raoul_. Men were weird when they were thinking about asking Christine out. Unfortunately, she knew this from experience, mostly with Erik, even though that hadn’t been too different, just a little more intensified stalking. (Kidding. He started leaving poetry and song lyrics about.) Christine nodded, a sad smile alighting on her face. “He was wonderful, that man. I still think about him sometimes.”

Christine nodded again. “Erik never got to meet him, obviously, but he agreed that if the baby was a boy we’d call him Gustave. He may get teased in elementary school, but we’ll tell him all about Dad and I think he’ll be proud to share his name.”

“And I’ll teach him to fight. Then he can really be covered in the blood of his enemies,” Meg inserted. Erik looked very pleased at that and Christine looked vaguely distressed.

Raoul and Christine settled into another round of reminiscing, this time about Gustave Senior. Erik picked at his bacon but listened intently, that (weird but sweet) softness settling into his eyes. Meg would have felt left out of the conversation, but there was something about hearing the familiar stories about the eccentric violinist that made her feel like they were back in college and Christine was murmuring stories from her childhood into the dark before they fell asleep, and she kind of loved it.

She ordered another pancake. The blueberry syrup hadn’t killed her yet. She wasn’t going to let it kill her now.

Finally it was approaching closing time for the diner, and the owner started trying to make eye contact. Meg and Erik reached for their wallets in unison, prepared for the usual battle of _who gets to pay_ , but Raoul tossed down a hundred (rich boy) and they left without too much ado.

Erik had his arm wrapped around Christine and she was almost cuddled into him as they walked down the street. This time, Raoul accepted it and ambled along next to them. He was literally the calmest kind-of jilted man ever. Couldn’t be jilted when he was like seven years too late, though, and he knew it.

“Are you coming to the bar again tomorrow?” Meg asked when Erik’s ridiculous stride and Christine’s used-to-it-despite-tiredness overtook them. “Those fools are performing again, and Gus gets to hang out with me behind the bar since my mom always needs time to prepare for the little hellion again. We like to play ‘the police are coming’ because it’s not exactly legal to have a kid back there.”

“I’m only in town for a business trip, going home on Saturday afternoon, so definitely, I’ll be there,” Raoul smiled. “I’ll help you and Gus keep an eye out for the police.”

“We’ll appreciate it,” Meg said, nodding graciously.

The next night, the bar was slammed. It was, to Meg’s endless relief, normal for a Friday, and it was the kind of crowd that made Erik completely uncomfortable, Christine almost nervous, and Meg wondering if she should figure out how to expand. Then she figured that Erik would get over it, Christine would be wonderful as always, and she would continue to be lazy about the whole thing.

She would consider getting a full-time bouncer though, because Joseph at the door was clearly not suited for the task. While most people who came to Opera Populaire were there for the classiness of the whole thing and were polite to a nauseating degree, some of them just wanted to get drunk on reasonably-priced alcohol, so they did like to push past. Joseph wasn’t small, but he wasn’t massive enough as a human to really do the job and be confident in it.

“You ever consider being a bouncer?” she asked Raoul, who had Gus shoved under one arm and was tickling him rather mercilessly. The baby (he was a proper kid now, it was just unbelievably hard to remember that he wasn’t a teeny baby who Erik could cradle in one hand) was laughing so hard she was afraid he was going to choke on his own amusement.

“Meg, I’m smaller than your current bouncer. I would not be good at it, not if you’re looking for someone actually intimidating. Erik would make a good bouncer.”

“If Erik was the bouncer, I wouldn’t need one at all. A third of these people are here just for him.”

Raoul shrugged and set Gus down on his wobbly legs. “I’m going to stick with my boring job, but thank you for the consideration.”

“Auntie Meg,” Gus said, tugging at her shirt, “I’m hungry.”

“One second, little man.” She whirled around to find the snack that Christine had packed for him and handed it down. He was getting to an age where he could handle being at the bar for longer and longer without exploding into toddler anger (should be copyrighted there, he was very much Erik’s son), and sometimes he spent five minutes at a time begging to go onstage with his parents to watch up close and she was left wondering how to explain that he wasn’t technically supposed to be there.

That had been the origin of ‘the police are coming.’ It worked, most of the time.

They were just finishing a song, this one in French, and Meg caught Christine’s eye, holding up the thumbs up that meant Gus had about another hour and a half in him before the aforementioned toddler anger happened. Christine nodded and glanced at Erik.

The next song was a piano interlude so that Christine could get some water and Erik could be as flashy as he wanted for a bit. Gus paused in telling Raoul about the dog his daddy had promised they would get soon and tilted his head. “That’s my song!” Gus whispered loudly.

“What song is it?” Raoul asked, mimicking the whisper-shout.

Gus said some words in Italian that Meg obviously didn’t understand, but once Gus said it, she did vaguely recognize the music (even without the words; she was very proud of herself). It was one of the gooey love songs that Erik started playing for Christine when they were dating and even more when she was pregnant, and he’d obviously not stopped.

She was going to have to make him actually sing the words sometime—she couldn’t remember if he’d ever sung it at Opera Populaire and she really wanted to hear it. And of course the patrons would love it. All for them, yes.

The last hour passed quickly, with Gus slowly winding down and Raoul watching Christine and Erik absolutely jamming their classical music with even more admiration than the previous night. Meg wandered back and forth between tables and the bar and Gus with usual nonchalance, keeping an eagle eye on the occasional intoxicated individuals and deciding to actually hire a proper bouncer. _She_ had to throw someone twice her weight out and while she did it just fine, it would be better to not have to.

The night wound down like a music box, music and all. Erik and Christine closed with the same song as the previous night, inducing tears throughout the bar. Meg happened to be at the bar when Raoul scooped Gus up from almost falling off a barstool. “Your parents are pretty cool, you know that?” he asked the kid.

“I know,” Gus said, nonchalant as can be. “Daddy says I’m gonna be better than them someday though.”

“I bet you will,” Meg said. This wasn’t just a humor-everything-the-child-says kind of sentence. Gustave was already almost as good at violin as Christine (admittedly, Christine was no more than proficient at violin, or so she said), and when he decided he wanted to sing it was _beautiful_. Infuriatingly so.

A few minutes later, Christine finished signing autographs and taking pictures and wandered over to the bar. “How was he?” she asked, picking Gus up and snuggling him.

“An angel.”

“Christine, he’s a great kid,” Raoul agreed.

Erik gently took Gus from Christine, handing her the lighter violin case in exchange. Meg couldn’t stop her heart from melting as the father looked down at his son like he always did, like the baby was some kind of saving grace. Like he was what brought Erik into the light. It was just too precious.

“How much longer are you in town?” Christine asked Raoul.

He checked his watch. “Another few hours. My boss got me a red-eye flight because she hates me.”

“No doubt of it,” Erik murmured, but the tiny smirk was enough that they all knew he was joking. Or at least Meg and Christine did and Raoul knew it when Christine whacked her husband very lightly on the arm.

“But I’ll leave you all here and head back to my hotel.”

Christine grabbed Raoul in a crushing sort of hug. “It’s been wonderful to see you,” she said, tears in her voice. “You’ll have to visit us again as soon as you can.”

“I will,” Raoul said into her hair.

When he pulled away, Erik reached out a hand to shake his. “You’re not as terrible as I had imagined, de Chagny.”

Raoul tilted his head. “Thank you? I guess? You take care of Christine and Gus.”

“They’re taking care of me, I should think.” Christine melted into his side and—there it was again, that awful-beautiful soft smile on Erik’s freakishly pretty face.

Meg decided that the most-of-two days of knowing him were enough for a hug, so she mimicked Christine’s earlier hug. “Thank you for not holding the Facebook-stalking against me. In my defense, it was Christine’s idea, and then Erik’s, and it was years ago.”

Raoul laughed as they parted. He called a cab and disappeared from the bar as quickly as he’d appeared.

Christine hugged Meg as tightly as ever and they settled their weekly coffee date (no boys, just them, usually on Tuesday morning). Erik kissed her cheek and leaned Gus toward her so she could smack a kiss on his forehead. Gus smiled sleepily up at her. They called their own cab and were shuttled away into the dark of the night.

She was left alone in her bar, just the way she liked it. As she was wiping down the last of the tables and compiling her mental list of requirements for a bouncer, her phone chimed.

_You have a friend request from Raoul de Chagny._

Meg laughed and accepted it.

**Author's Note:**

> -  
> -  
> -  
> christine and erik's heart-wrenching song is a duet version of 'love never dies' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXzMgGU7n1k). it doesn't exist, but i'd love to hear it.


End file.
